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It is a common misconception that the alphabet we use today originates from the ancient
Arabic civilisations. In fact it was mostly derived from A new system was developed by the ancient scholars in which symbols were used to represent sounds. Many were adapted from the original hieroglyphics hence the letter ‘m’ for example, looks a little like a camel. It is interesting to note that because of this for many hundreds of years there were no capital letters. The printing press was invented in 1436 by Johannes Guttenberg when he notice the raised lettering on a church pew had imprinted itself temporarily on his overweight wife's bottom. It was at this time that capitalisation was introduced. The full stop was such a fiddly little character to fit into Guttenberg's press that it was left out much of the time making printed text difficult to read. So capital letters were introduced as a way of marking the beginning of a sentence.
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Alphabet Facts |
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Egyptian Hieroglyphics in
which words and phrases are depicted by small pictures. The change was prompted when
Pharaoh Ramases 14th insisted that his name be etched above the entrance of all public
buildings. Unfortunately, he was not the most popular of rulers and the Hieroglyph
representing his name was regularly defaced by the addition of a beard and glasses.
The order we use today was settled on by Professor Alfred A. Betterman who in 1718
was looking for a way to help small children remember all the letters. He made up
a song and set it to a tune, changing the order of the letters so that it would rhyme.
This method was so effective that it was widely adopted and hence fell in to common
use. The new order was so rapidly accepted that it was used as the basis for the
first English dictionary published by Dr. Samuel Oxford in 1755.